State has largest job gain since 2000

Massachusetts posted its largest single-year jobs gain in 2013 since the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. But it still has an unemployment rate above the national average.

By Matt MurphySTATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

BOSTON – Massachusetts posted its largest single-year jobs gain in 2013 since the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. But it still has an unemployment rate above the national average.The state’s employers added 55,200 jobs in 2013, the biggest annual gain since 2000 when the economy grew by 95,500 jobs.

But the state also shed 4,500 jobs in January. The state finished January with an unemployment rate of 6.8 percent, according to data released Thursday morning, a drop from 7.1 percent a month earlier, but still higher than the 6.6 percent national average.

“Massachusetts added 55,200 jobs in 2013 which is the largest job growth in a single year in nearly 15 years and represents a continuing trend of significant job gains the last four years,” Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday morning during a conference call where he said the employment gains were evidence that his strategy of investing in education, infrastructure and innovative businesses is working.

According to labor and economic development officials, the recorded job growth last year answered a question in the minds of those monitoring economic growth about whether the state’s job market would continue to expand after clawing back from the loss of jobs during the recession.

The largest recorded growth came in the professional, scientific and business services sector where 13,500 jobs were added over the year, while the construction trades were the only sector to post a job loss of 1,200 in 2013.

Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Rachel Kaprielian said the state has added 195,000 jobs since job levels bottomed out in October 2009, and the workforce now counts 61,700 more jobs than its previous “high-water mark pre-recession.”

Housing and Economic Development Secretary Greg Bialecki said it wasn’t until around the beginning of last year that the state fully recovered the jobs lost during the recession, though the new statistics also show that 237,100 people still cannot find work.

“For our state, it’s particularly exciting that we had such strong growth in 2013 because it means we are moving beyond a simple recovery, we are getting beyond getting back what we lost, and moving into new territory,” Bialecki said.

House Minority Leader Brad Jones said some monthly unemployment rates over the past year were revised upward, raising questions about the accuracy of numbers as they are released.

“I don’t think too much can be read into these. There’s a recurring frustration that the numbers continue to bounce all over the place,” he said. “If the administration wants to tout their accuracy then the most recent numbers show we lost 4,500 in January. Is one month a trend? Hopefully we won’t see that continue.”

Patrick said the state’s economy, despite its higher unemployment rate, is growing faster than the national economy, posting a growth rate of twice the national average in the fourth quarter of last year. The governor also said single-family home sales in January reached their highest number since 2007.

Despite the “very encouraging news,” Patrick said, “At the same time, I know not every community and every household is feeling the effect of the recovery just yet and we want to keep going.”

Seasonally unadjusted unemployment rates in December were above 10 percent in Pittsfield, New Bedford and the Lawrence-Methuen-Salem areas.

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